Method
Price every loss before ranking it
Loss trees list where the hours go. A finance committee needs to know what each hour is worth.
Flagship report · Edition 1
Check existing capacity before approving a new line
Why the next line should be found before it is funded, and how to price the one already standing.
From the flagship report
Six published figures frame the case
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75.7%
Capacity utilization, US manufacturing, August 2026 (preliminary); 1972–2025 average 78.2%
CAP-001
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66 hours
Average plant hours per week in operation, US manufacturing, Q2 2026, of 168 in a week
CAP-006
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22.2%
Plants below full capability citing insufficient labor, Q2 2026; 11.5% cite equipment limitations
CAP-005
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0.5% a year
Manufacturing productivity growth in the current business cycle; long-term rate 2.1%
CAP-024
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$314.3 billion
Capital spending on structures and equipment, US manufacturing companies, 2022, nominal
CAP-017
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78.5%
Share of full production capability used by US manufacturing plants, Q2 2026 (±2.4); Census flags low response coverage
CAP-004
Data as of October 9, 2026. CAP marks a published statistic; the full source for each is in the report's notes.
Flagship report · Edition 1
The capacity you already own
Why the next line should be found before it is funded, and how to price the one already standing.
Exhibit 13 · Putting a price on lost hours
Three ways to buy an hour
On the report's illustrative line, recovery is cheapest for a few hundred hours, recovery plus weekend scheduling for up to about 2,200, and only a new line covers more (Illustrative).
Exhibit 13
In the illustrative case, the cheapest hour depends on how many the plant needs
Illustrative data
Annual cost per productive constraint hour actually needed, by option and by hours needed a year, illustrative line, dollars per hour
Note: Recover: $300k a year program, up to 328 h (25% of losses). Schedule: weekend hours at $800 per scheduled hour, $1,024 per productive hour, up to 1,875 h. Build: $12M line, 10 years, 10% cost of capital, $1.2M a year to run; adds 4,688 h.
Source: Illustrative data. Trapped Capacity illustrative model; assumptions in Chapter 5 and formulas in the method notes.
Latest insights
Changeovers
Changeovers are a capital question
Measurement
Read OEE like a finance partner
The thesis
Trapped Capacity prices the capacity plants already own.
Plants lose output to stops, changeovers, slow running, rework and waiting. Trapped Capacity measures those losses and translates them into the terms a finance committee uses: hours, units, cash and payback.
Research reports
- Flagship report The capacity you already own October 2026
Flagship report · Edition 1
The capacity you already own
Why the next line should be found before it is funded, and how to price the one already standing.
- Research report Pricing a changeover Expected: to be confirmed
Research report · Changeovers
Pricing a changeover
A working method for turning changeover minutes into a figure a finance committee can test.
- Research report The slow-running ledger Expected: to be confirmed
Research report · Measurement
The slow-running ledger
Why speed losses stay invisible in most reporting, and how to bring them into the monthly numbers.
Method
Each loss is priced in three steps
Every loss is priced in three steps, with the assumption beside each one, so a finance partner can replace any input with their own.
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